Finding Freedom in the Water

People, second prize stories

November 24, 2016

A young woman learns to float, in the Indian Ocean, off Nungwi, Zanzibar.

Traditionally, girls in the Zanzibar Archipelago are discouraged from learning how to swim, largely because of the strictures of a conservative Islamic culture and the absence of modest swimwear. But in villages on the northern tip of Zanzibar, the Panje Project (panje translates as ‘big fish’) is providing opportunities for local women and girls to learn swimming skills in full-length swimsuits, so that they can enter the water without compromising their cultural or religious beliefs.

She is recipient of both the City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowship and the Eddie Adams Workshop XXV Los Angeles Times Assignment Award. Her work has been recognized by Arles Voies Off, ASMP, CENTER, Center for Cultural Innovation, FotoVisura, Médecins Sans Frontières, Photocrati Fund, Pictures of the Year International, Prix de la Photographie Paris, and UNICEF.

Anna earned an MFA from the Yale University School of Art and a BA from the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

Anna’s involvement with photography deepened in 2006, inspiring a mid-career transition into photography. She spent the early years of her career designing a variety of publications — predominantly books — in close collaboration with international art and architecture organizations. Projects included the design of Morphosis, architecture monograph by Pritzker Prize Laureate Thom Mayne (Phaidon Press), and Paradise Cage: Kiki Smith and Coop Himmelblau (The Museum of Contemporary Art [MOCA], Los Angeles).

Anna taught at both Art Center College of Design and the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture, and served a teaching fellowship at the Yale University School of Art, as Head Designer at MOCA and as Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.

Her design work was recognized by The American Center for Design, the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), and Communication Arts, among others. Her work is in the permanent collections of the AIGA Archives at the Denver Art Museum, the UCLA Arts Library Artists’ Book Collection, the Yale University Art + Architecture Library, and the Yale University Sterling Memorial Library Arts of the Book Collection.